The instant invention concerns itself with the production of covered yarn customarily used in the knitting of the uppermost portion of mens's knitted hosiery. See element 12 of FIG. 11 and element 30 of FIG. 8. The term "covered yarn," wherever used in this specification, is used to describe an elastomeric filament or strand about which there is twisted or wound at least one--more commonly two or more--"hard fibers." The term "hard fibers" wherever used in this specification denotes non-elastic filament or spun yarn. Covering an elastomeric member with a hard fiber produces a covered yarn composite with the following characteristics:
(a) controlled elongation and power, PA1 (b) conventional (hard fiber) tactile aesthetics, PA1 (c) improved abrasion resistance, PA1 (d) higher strength, and PA1 (e) improved stretch uniformity for subsequent processing.
Covered yarn for use in men's hosiery is manufactured with prior art machines called covering machines, for example covering machines manufactured by the Officine Meccaniche Menegattio Company of Monza, Italy and Arnold Machine Company, Inc., of Rockland, Massachusetts. Such machines are designed to draw an elastomeric filament from a source, wind or twist about such elastomeric filament at least one hard fiber and then wind the thus produced covered yarn on a core (a paper cone or cylinder), producing what is called in the textile trade a take-up package. Covered yarn drawn from a take-up package made by these machines does not have the desirable feeding or draw-off behavior, so vitally essential for use in the knitting of men's hosiery. Such yarn has the propensity to "hang up" and "pucker" and thus feed unevenly and undesirably in a knitting operation environment.
The above described lack of desirable draw-off behavior is overcome by a prior art separate rewinding operation performed by a coner apparatus shown generally in FIG. 9 by element 29. A take-up package of covered yarn 9 with undesirable draw-off properties is rewound on another core 6 on a machine called a coner (core is cone shaped), an example of which is the Schweiter KEK-PN Precision Cone Winder manufactured by Schweiter Limited, Hogen, Switzerland. The purpose of a coner is to create cones or packages 11 of covered yarn having desirable draw-off behavior. Without the use of a coner in a rewinding step, the take-up package of the covered yarn created by the use of a covering machine is unsuitable for use in a knitting machine environment. The extra coning step, the use of a coner in the coning operation to achieve a package of covered yarn having superior draw-off behavior, is the problem the instant invention solves.
Using the method and apparatus disclosed avoids completely the coning operation required by prior art practices. A covered yarn take-up package manufactured by the apparatus and method of the instant invention will have the same or superior draw-off behavior as cones of covered yarn manufactured using a coner. By following the teachings of the disclosed invention, capital investment required in a covered yarn manufacturing is reduced considerably, e.g. the cost of a coning machine or machines is eliminated, maintenance, labor and energy expense necessary to operate a coning machine is abolished and, as will be described hereafter in this specification, take-up packages are created that contain twice as much yarn, by weight, in comparison to the amount of covered yarn produced by a coning machine.
In its simplest form, the invention involves a covering machine take up package shaft assembly of prior art design modified by a mass disposed on the shaft of the shaft assembly. When such an assembly (shaft, spacer means and mass) is disposed in a core, on which covered yarn is to be wound and subsequently rotated, even slowly (7 to 9 rpm), there results a dynamic imbalance during rotation that causes the wound covered yarn to be more densely compacted on that portion of the core where the mass is located in comparison to the balance of the core. Such phenomenon causes a cone shaped bundle of wound yarn on a cylindrical shaped core as shown by element 8 of FIG. 10. It also causes cones of wound covered yarn on identically shaped cones to have yarn surfaces that deviate from the vertical by a measurable difference. Compare, for example, FIGS. 1 and 2.